Nokia Says No To Smartphones, May License The Nokia Brand In Future

Nokia has sold its devices division to Microsoft for $7.2 billion, and is focusing on its networking and mapping services, which are turning out to be good for the company.

In the past few weeks, we’ve heard rumors that Nokia is working on an Android smartphone, but it seems that’s not the case. Nokia’s CEO Rajeev Suri put an end to all the rumors at the capital markets day that they don’t plan to return to handsets markets, but licensing the Nokia brand is a possibility.

“We are not looking to a direct consumer return to handsets per se,” he said, but the Nokia “brand will return to the consumer world” through licensing deals in the future. “The Nokia brand is still extremely powerful and we see considerable interest in licensing. We will pursue it… in a thoughtful and considered way,” he further said.

The CEO also mentioned the other units of the business are showing a positive growth since 2011. “Nokia has gone from a long period of decline to our first period of year on year growth since 2011”.

Licensing may be possible in the future, as we’ve seen some other companies done that in the past. But, there’s no official word if Nokia has any deal on the way.

This should however put an end to all the rumors that Nokia is working on an Android smartphone.